Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Cars to Compost

Mayor Dayne Walling is launching a program to turn Chevy in the Hole into a depository for leaves and compost and, eventually, a park. According to the City Speak blog:

This new process will provide a significant savings to the city. “We currently pay $300,000.00 a year to have our leaves and compost taken away and an additional $400,000.00 to have top soil brought in to backfill demolition sites,” said Green Cities Coordinator Steve Montle. “By filling in Chevy In The Hole with our leaf and yard compost it is expected to save the city a half million dollars a year, while at the same time moving us one step closer to repurposing that site as a park and green space for the community.”

I'm also skeptical that it could be changed into a park. Will any steps be taken to bust up all that concrete and get all the gunk and toxic sewage that GM had dumped there for the past 100 years? Maybe the money saved can go back into the breaking up and removal of the concrete. Otherwise, how will trees be able to take root?

There's a technical planning process on this, involving the GCLB, the GCBRA, the City, Kettering and other stakeholders.

Christina Kelly of GCLB and GCBRA, who also teaches at UM Ann Arbor in the architecture/land use program, did a very interesting presentation last week at Kettering on technical issues, possible features and two student-team studies that she arranged to have done for the Chevy-in-the-Hole properties and the related river valley zone.

Actually, I don't think this is a new idea, not that it isn't a good one! They used to dump leaves in "Atwood Park" which isn't really a park per se. It is an area of abandoned railroad right of way on the west side of Fenton road, and south of West Court St. (south of Atwood St) I have not a clue what the city does with this land now, but a lot of "stuff" has been dumped there in the past...but, from having been employed there (The City) in the past, I know that they used this site for compost.

Thanks for commenting. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.

"Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City" by Gordon Young

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A blog for the long-lost residents of the Vehicle City by Gordon Young

"I grew up on the Eastside and recall the unexplained pride I felt when the 3:30 Buick factory whistle blew and the roughly dressed workers poured out of the General Motors labyrinth swinging their lunch pails. Some were headed for home and some for the corner bar, but all with the determined step of an army after a battle won. I somehow felt as if I were a part of this giant assembly line and the city it fed."